Haley sees Brooke in class on Monday, and the following day, and the following day, but they don't talk. It's as if those already tremulous bonds between them had snapped, and Haley is bothered by it. It would be nice if Brooke just said, "Hi," to her when she entered the classroom, or waved when she passed her in the halls.

But Brooke is ignoring her.

Still. There's always the weekend. Brooke has to come over this weekend; she promised.

Lucas again invites her for dinner with Brooke, but she declines, saying to herself, if she's ignoring me, I'm going to ignore her.

On Saturday, it looks like it's about to rain. Brooke comes over, and there is an awkward moment where they both stand in the doorway and try to think of what to say. Finally, Haley says, "Let's go to the living room."

"Okay," Brooke nods, and they go into the living room and sit next to each other on the white couch.

Haley scratches the back of her neck. "Err…have you thought anymore about the project?" she asks.

"Well, I've been awfully busy, so I'm sorry, no, not really. Have you?"

"No," Haley lies. She doesn't want Brooke to thinks that she's over obsessing about it, even though she kind of is.

"So what are we going to do?"

"Um…" says Haley.

Brooke sighs. "I don't want to go home. It's so quiet here. So nice and quiet. Can I stay here? For a couple hours?"

"Yeah. Sure," Haley grins. "Do you want to work on the project or – ?"

"Not really. I do school stuff all week, and I'm tired of it. Do you have any good movies?"

"Maybe…Do you want to look?" Haley walks over to the TV and opens the cabinet underneath. "Lots of Disney movies from when I was a little kid, basically. We have some classics, and I don't know…nothing you'd probably want to watch."

"Oh…" Brooke walks over and kneels down to look at the videos.

"We don't buy them much, anymore. We rent them a lot, but there aren't a lot of videos that I find I'm capable of watching more than two times," Haley says.

"You wanna watch The Lion King? " Brooke asks, almost thoughtfully.

Haley doesn't know why, but she smiles. "Okay."

"Do you want popcorn?" she asks as she puts the video in.

"Nah, that's okay."

"All right."

They sit down next to each other on the couch, and Brooke's bare leg is touching Haley's bare leg; it is smooth and warm.

They are silent.

"You know," Brooke says finally, about half-way through it, "This is basically all I know about Hamlet."

"What?"

"Yeah. I mean, I never read it or anything, but someone told me that if I watched it, I'd know all the finer parts of Hamlet."

"Except that Hamlet is a tragedy."

"He didn't tell me that."

"Come on, you must have known that. 'To be or not to be' – what's he talking about? Guess."

"Um…death? Killing himself?"

"Bingo." She laughs. "Although, now that you mention it, Hamlet is a lot like The Lion King. Hmm."

It starts to rain. They can hear the drops pelt the tin roof.

"Damnit," Brooke says.

"What?" asks Haley, looking around, and then at Brooke.

"I walked. I didn't bring my car. I'm going to have to walk home in the rain, unless you could…?"

"I don't have a car. And my parents are away for the weekend."

"Damnit."

"You could, um," Haley said, heart beating fast, "You could, um, stay here. Until the rain stops."

"It's not going to stop, Haley. I saw it on the news. Not till tomorrow."

"Then you could stay here tonight." The words are out of Haley's mouth before she even has time to think about them.

Brooke looks at her for a moment and then nods. "All right. Okay. I will."

A while later, when they're watching Aladdin, Brooke says, "Are your parents ever home?"

"What?" asks Haley, startled.

"Your parents. They're never around when I'm here. I mean, I'm not here a lot, but…"

Haley doesn't speak for a minute. "No, they're never here."

"Why?"

"I…I don't know why. Dad's always got work and Mother would rather not be here, and they go on trips a lot but they can't take me because I've got school…"

"Oh."

Haley bites her lip. "I used to think when I was little – when they went away, my brothers and sisters would baby sit me – but I used to think that they went away because they didn't like me."

Brooke nodded. "I know," she says. "I used to think my parents fought because of me."

"But it's not true."

"No. It's not true."

After a moment Brooke closes her eyes and says, "I wish they would just get a divorce."

Hesitantly, Haley puts a hand on Brooke's shoulder. Brooke's eyes snap open.

"It's okay," Haley murmurs.

"No, it's not," Brooke whispers. "It's really not." She places her hand over the Haley's. "Thank you," she says.

"For what?"

"I don't know. For everything."

Haley's about to say that she hasn't done anything, but Brooke's hand is still on her hers and she's finding it hard to form coherent sentences.

They stare at each other for a moment, then Brooke removes her hand, and Haley quickly drops hers.

"I um…I um…pizza?" Haley says lamely.

"Sure. If the delivery guy can get here in this rain. I think we're stranded. Let's just hope the power doesn't go out."

"Oh, don't say that. It's bad luck. But what do you want on your pizza?"

"Cheese if that's fine. I don't like toppings."

"Good. Neither do I."

The power goes out when their midway through their pizza, about a third of the way into Beauty and the Beast.

Haley has no idea what they're going to talk about. Luckily for her, Brooke stands up, and says, "I know it's early, but I'm going to go to bed."

"Well, where do you want to sleep? I mean, there's my parent's room – "

"Nah, I think that'd be weird. I'll stay in your room."

"O-okay," says Haley, who thinks that Brooke, sleeping in the same bed as her, is weird enough.

"Can I borrow some clothes or something?" Brooke when they are in Haley's room.

"Yeah. Sure." Haley grabs out a set of pajamas for herself and a set for Brooke, and hands them to her.

"Thanks," Brooke says.

Then she takes her shirt off. Haley is overcome with a feeling she can't name, and blushes, but for some reason, she can't look away. And Brooke for some other reason that Haley can't explain, seems to know this, and is slowly undoing the hooks of her bra – there, they're all undone, she's pulling one arm out of the strap, then the other –

Haley looks away, and then goes into the bathroom to change her clothes.

When she comes out, Brooke is sitting on the bed, wearing the over-large T-shirt and sweatpants that Haley had given her to sleep in. Haley can't help but look over at her T-shirt and think that she's not wearing a bra.

Oh my God. Oh my God.

"So…"

"So, good night," Brooke smiles at her, like she had not just been performing a strip tease in front of Haley.

"Yeah." They get in bed. "Good night."

Haley wakes only once in the middle of the night, thirsty, but she doesn't get up.

Brooke's arm is thrown around Haley's chest, and Haley doesn't move. She lies there, and stares at, and thinks very hard.

But there are no answers to her questions.